Martha "Mattie" Griffith Browne (1828-1906) was an Kentucky-born anti-slavery novelist and women's suffrage activist. She was a slaveholder herself, having inherited half a dozen slaves following her father's death, but in 1858 was able to emancipate them and move them to Ohio with financial help from the American Anti-Slavery Society. This pseudo-slave narrative was first published in 1856 and those with close knowledge of slave society noted the book's realism. Browne later confirmed that the story was composed entirely of true incidents she had witnessed.